


too lost and hurting to carry my load

by TheImaginativeFox



Series: bad things happen to the people you love [3]
Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Bruce Wayne is a Good Dad, Dick Grayson is Robin, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fever, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-15 22:16:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21025604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheImaginativeFox/pseuds/TheImaginativeFox
Summary: Whumptober Prompt 3: DeliriumDick is sick and feverish, and those two things are forcing him to face some previously-stifled fears and insecurities. He really just needs someone to take care of him.





	too lost and hurting to carry my load

**Author's Note:**

> I uh really need to start making these fics shorter if I have any hope of finishing these prompts in a timely fashion
> 
> Dick is about 16/17 here

There’s a hand on his shoulder, shaking him into consciousness. “Dick?”

Dick lifts his head off of the floor and blinks himself awake only to find Bruce crouched down next to him, eyebrows pinched in concern. “I fell asleep?”

“Yes.”

He rubs at his eye and sits up, keeping the blanket pulled tight around his shoulders. “What time is it?” The fire is still going and a few pages of his textbook are crinkled where his face had used them as an impromptu pillow. At least there’s no drool on it.

“Eight.”

Dick angles his mouth into his elbow and gives a few rough coughs, causing pain to spread through his chest. When he looks back up, Bruce is frowning.

“Are you going to be up for patrol tonight?”

No. He wants to go back to sleep, preferably under fifty or so blankets. “I think I’ll sit this one out if you think you can make it without me for one night.” Dick flashes a smile and starts picking up his study materials. “Besides, I have that History test on Friday; I should probably get some more studying in.”

“Hnn.” Bruce presses the back of his hand to Dick’s forehead. Dick sighs theatrically at him but doesn’t move. “Have you taken anything?”

“No.”

“You have a fever.”

“I _know_.” He hadn’t, actually. He knew he was sick—had been for the past few days. It had been pretty mild up until today when he woke up freezing, exhausted, and trapped in molasses. A fever, as it turns out, was the cause.

Dick stacks all of his stuff together and stands, ignoring the rush of dizziness the action sends to his head. Bruce follows suit, watching him suspiciously.

“Medicine, then bed,” Bruce decides. He reaches for Dick’s shoulder to guide him out of the living room, but Dick shrugs it off.

“I can do it myself. I’m not a kid,” Dick huffs, all too aware that the blanket cape isn’t helping his case in the slightest. Nevertheless, Dick makes his way out of the living room before Bruce can grab him again and force meds down his throat or, worse, get Alfred involved.

“I’ll check on you when I get back. You would be wise to be asleep before then.”

Dick rolls his eyes, calls, “Whatever you say, Brucester,” and continues up the stairs to his room. He kicks the door closed and drops his stuff on the desk, not caring at all when one of the pencils rolls off the pile and onto the floor. He climbs into bed without changing his clothes or removing his blanket cape. He falls asleep in seconds.

oOo

When Bruce gets back from patrol, he’s poking Dick awake and forcing a thermometer into his mouth.

“101.9,” Bruce says when it beeps.

“Does that mean I can stay home tomorrow?” Dick asks, voice half gone. He knows that even without a fever on his side, Bruce would let him stay home if he asked. Partly because Bruce has a surprisingly hard time saying no to Dick about these things (Alfred says it’s because “Master Bruce had a rather difficult time with school-related activities while he was young.”), and partly because Dick so rarely blatantly asks to stay home.

“Hn. We might have to call Leslie if this gets much higher,” Bruce tells him.

Dick rolls his eyes. “It’s fine, B. I just need some Tylenol or whatever.”

“Which I believe I told you to take before you went to sleep.”

Dick just glares at him and Bruce sighs.

“Change. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Bruce leaves and Dick changes into pajamas, forcing himself to stay upright until Bruce finally returns with water and pills. After he swallows them, Bruce tucks him back in and turns off the alarm on his nightstand.

“I have a meeting at eleven,” Bruce starts, “but I can be home for the rest of the day.”

“I’ll be fine.” Dick’s eyes are already closed. “Probably just sleep all day.”

And he does. Alfred wakes him up to eat and then he sleeps some more, although he moves from his bed to the couch during the day. He watches a mix of reality TV and cartoons from at least ten years ago and curls up in a spot Alfred thinks it too close to the fire. He rapidly starts feeling worse and the fever gets higher, and Dick swears the medicine has stopped working altogether. But mostly, he tries to sleep.

oOo

Dick’s head shoots up in alarm when he hears the door creak open. He had nearly fallen asleep again (maybe he had) and now he’s lost his place. It doesn’t matter, though; none of it is sticking anyway.

Bruce steps into the room and Dick goes back to scowling at his notes, something he’d been doing for the past forty minutes after waking up in a panic—remnants from another intangible nightmare that screamed _failure failure failure_—and remembering all about the test he hadn’t studied for since Bruce sent him to bed several nights ago. But he had time; he could still get a few hours of cramming in, ace the test, and then pass out for the rest of the weekend. He had a plan. Bruce trained him to always have a plan.

“Kiddo, you should be in bed. It’s nearly four in the morning.” Bruce sounds tired, but something tells Dick that the tiredness isn’t from the patrol he just got back from. He crosses the doorway to lean over him. “What are you working on?”

“Studying,” Dick replies. “I have a test.”

“I really doubt you’ll be able to go to school tomorrow,” Bruce tells him gently.

Dick snaps his head up to look at him. “But I need to,” he explains earnestly. “If my grades slip, you’re gonna bench me. That’s the rule.” It’s always been the rule, and Dick’s grades have never slipped. Never.

Bruce takes the pencil from him. “I think we can make an exception, all things considered.”

Dick just frowns and shakes his head. “But I have a test, I can’t miss it, I can’t.” Bruce is always looking for a reason to bench him, and he knows what it’s all been building up to, too: firing him (getting rid of him). He can’t let that happen, he won’t. Not over a stupid test he _knows_ he can pass.

“Enough,” Bruce says. It’s something he says when he’s finished with Dick and whatever Dick has brought up, but he doesn’t sound harsh. It's still that weird sympathetic, gentle tone, like he doesn’t think Dick can handle a simple argument at this point (weak, _worthless_).

“No, no, no," Dick pleads, sweaty hands in his hair. "I can do it. I can keep up—I promise! Please, just let me show you. _Please_." _I'm good enough, let me be good enough._

Bruce's face falls. "Sweetheart, of _course_ you’re good enough. You’re perfect.” Dick swallows, realizing he must have said that last part out loud. “This has nothing to do with that."

"Then what is it? Why are you trying to fire me?" It’s panic. That’s what this feeling is, heart racing and chest tight.

"I—" Bruce stammers for a second. His face shifts—_Enough_—and Dick knows the discussion is over. He won’t talk about it; he’ll never tell Dick where he messed up, and then he can mark _that_ as another one of Dick’s failures. "I think the fever is making you delirious. Let’s get you back to sleep, huh? Maybe another dose of medicine."

Dick doesn’t know what to do. He settles for clenching his jaw and staring into the middle distance. He feels dizzy and sick and he wants it to be over. He can’t think like this, he can’t breathe. He can’t, he can’t, he can’t—

Bruce pulls him against his chest then, shirt soaking up Dick’s hot tears. “I’m not going to fire you, understand? But I can’t let you go out as Robin unless you prove to me that you are capable of taking care of yourself. Right now, that means resting and recovering. Robin needs to be at his best to watch Batman’s back, right?”

Dick presses his forehead into Bruce’s shoulder and coughs and coughs and coughs, each one sending a shard of glass into his lungs. “Bruce,” he whines when it eases up. Bruce rubs his hand up and down his spine, hushing him and grounding him to the here and now. “Don’t feel good.”

“I know, chum." He presses a hand against Dick's forehead and then again on his cheek. "Christ, you're burning up. Let’s have Alfred come up here and check you out, yeah?”

“Okay, okay.”

oOo

Alfred examines Dick while Bruce sits close to him on the bed. They’re talking like Dick isn’t even there, but he can’t bring himself to care. He wants to be taken care of right now.

The high fever (104.8) and the low pulse ox reading (92%) make Bruce worry and he brings up hospitals, but Alfred reasons that, “There’s nothing they will do that we can’t do here, and making Master Dick sit in an emergency room for hours will only make him more uncomfortable than he already is.” Normally, Dick might be relieved to hear that, but he doesn’t really care what happens to him as long as someone is doing something to fix it.

After listening to his lungs, Alfred finally diagnoses it as pneumonia. Bacterial, most likely, but they’re going to run a sputum culture to be sure and start him on antibiotics in the meantime. Alfred grabs some from the cave’s medical stash along with an icepack to try to get the fever down.

He falls asleep with Bruce and Alfred by his side. The fever is still high and they don’t want to leave him alone in case his pulse ox drops lower and he ends up needing oxygen. Later, Dick will recognize these as the excuses they are, but for now, he’s afraid to be left alone too.

He spends most of the next few days lying on the couch in front of a fireplace, head in Bruce’s lap and Alfred close by. They give him medicine and pet his hair and promise that he’ll feel better soon. Dick knows they’re right, he does—Bruce hasn’t brought up hospitals since that night and Alfred has stopped forcing icepacks on him; the coughing is even starting to ease up ever so slightly—but he’s completely consumed by how shitty he’s still feeling, and part of him worries that he’s never going to get better. Not completely, anyway.

Bruce’s fingers tangle in his hair again and Dick hums in contentment. “Try to get some more sleep, chum.”

“Okay.” Dick closes his eyes and tries to ignore his fever-induced fears. “Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, I hope you liked it! I'm super exhausted right now, so I have little to no idea what level of quality this fic is at (sorry about that). Comments and kudos are always appreciated!
> 
> [tumblr](https://the-imaginative-fox.tumblr.com/post/188335886403/too-lost-and-hurting-to-carry-my-load)


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